judy apprentice
by FeistyAcorns
Summary: see inside, elements of ella encahnted, bloody jack, and les miserables
1. Judy's Beginnings

Judy Apprentice  
  
Summary: Judy is sent to finishing school, but attempts a daring escape after months of being trained to becoming a dainty docile young woman. After she escapes, she wants to become apprentice to a carpenter.but only boys can be apprentices. Can she do it? And an adventure comes her way later.  
  
Judith Ana Maria Silver. That would be my name. Understandably, it has been shortened to simply Judy, except when Father thinks I've done summat bad and that's when he says my full name right before giving me a mother Fletcher of a pater noster, or a beatin'. Which is rare, considering my father is quite docile of a man, very quiet really. He never says anything hardly, and even in an argument, his words are few. But then he comes up with something drastic and his words are powerful.  
  
Maybe tha's cuz he has little to say, what with him and my two brothers workin' the fields all day. HE usually finds some task or other to work on alone, however.  
  
Ye see, we grew up on this here farm, raisin' a few horses an' cows. I was borne here and I lived here all me thirteen year on this little plot of land not two acres big, in the England countryside. Ever since 1665, when I been borne 'ere.  
  
But anyhoo, I'm losing me train of thought. I was trying to begin me story, and it's a mother fletcher of a long one.  
  
When I was thirteen years old..  
  
It all began on a day that I recall was quite warm, even though it was cloudy, and rain was threatenin' to break loose and raise hell over the small farm we lives on.  
  
I recall this day perfectly, because I had been pelting me older brother with mud from a puddle. I remember like it was yesterday, because the mud was of the prefect texture for makin' mudballs and flinging them at me brother, whose name was, and still is, William Asa Jonathan Silver.  
  
Understandably, it was shortened to Will. I called him Willy though, because I knew he hated that.  
  
Anyhow.  
  
I was throwin' mud at him again, when Mother called me inside, tellin' me Father wished ter speak with me.  
  
I thought I was in fer another yellin'. I was, it turns out, in a manner of speaking.  
  
I walked over to Father.  
  
'Judy,' he said to me.  
  
'Here it comes,' I thought, sucking in me breath.  
  
'Yes Father?'  
  
'I've decided that..I'm goin' into town tomorrow to sell the ol' cow. And..emm.yer mother and I have saved some money, and we've decided to.send you to finishing school.'  
  
The words hit me like a rock. 'but-but why would you do such a thing?'  
  
'Well, William's goin' to school next year, an' Isaac [Henry George Silver- my brother younger by two years] will go when he's sixteen. But we've decided maybe ye need..some finishin'.'  
  
Well, I suppose my father were right, what with me being how I am, no manners, dirty, can't talk proper, don't know how ter cook or sew or play no instruments.  
  
Or read.  
  
Or write.  
  
And my parents don't have a lot of money, so if they want me to get an education, or at least what finishin' school offers, I should take it right?  
  
And if they're giving that much for me, maybe I really do need some.finishin'.  
  
Still, I felt like I'd been run over by a boulder...if not our dog. Who is fat, let me jes say that.  
  
I said nothing.  
  
'You may go,' Father said.  
  
You may go? YOU MAY GO? Tha's all he has ter say? After having me leave tomorrow? And tellin' me today? The school is in London, three days from here, and tha's by fancy carriage, Willy's always said.  
  
Not only that, but I only have 'til dark today to say goodbye.  
  
To the farm.  
  
The animals.  
  
The horses, especially Fangor.  
  
And the woods.  
  
And the fields near us.  
  
And me family.  
  
And the pond.  
  
And the sky.  
  
And the birds nestin' in the big oak by the barn.  
  
And the owl that lives in the barn with her babies.  
  
And the foxes in the holes in the woods.  
  
And everything that I've known me whole life. I've been here so long, and sure, I may have lived nowheres else, but this was home. And what about boardin' school.  
  
I'll be with lots of other people that I don't know.  
  
Rich people.  
  
Beautiful people.  
  
Two categories I definitely do not fit into.  
  
We can immediately strike out rich. And beautiful? BAA!  
  
With my unruly black hair, and green eyes that make me look like the mangy cat that lives in the barn next to the cow pen, and me being all skinny and pale, in dirty clothes, often meself being caked with mud or with grass stains an what not.  
  
We can definitely strike out beautiful too.  
  
It's like my life is endin' before it's had a chance to begin.  
  
And there's no hope of me getting' out. At least I don't think. 


	2. Finishing School

I sat in the cart next to my father, not speaking to him for the whole way to the town.  
  
Finishing school? A preposterous idea, me thinks.  
  
I 'ad te say g'bye to all I loved, only te hafta suffer the likes of the daughters of dukes an' earls an' trash like that.  
  
There would be nothin' for me there, in the Finishing Academy for the Young Women of London.  
  
I s'pose it'd be best not te resist me father's way, b'cause his way will stand in the end, no matter 'ow stubborn I am. And I'm pretty stubborn.  
  
Anyways,  
  
We pulled up te the school, a fine establishment. So fine I 'ad the obligation te spit upon the sidewalk, b'fore my father boxed my ears for 'at display, gave me my bags, and road off, after seeing me enter the buildin'.  
  
I was seen insaide by Madame Bissette, a rather scary lookin' woman, with a drawn, gaunt face, that made 'er look like the establishment regularly tortured 'er by pullin' 'er guts out an' makin' her watch.  
  
Wow, that was pretty disgustin' o' me ter say. But that's what Madame looked like.  
  
'You must be Ms. Silver, late for the start of term of course, I expected no less from the likes of your family. Come along, I will show you to your room, and bring you the proper attire, and then I will personally escort you to supper with the other girls.' She said all 'at b'for I could protest her comment about the likes of me.  
  
I meekly followed 'er to the green room, where everythin' was green. The carpets, rugs, walls, curtains, bedsheets and linens, and the plants and lamp shades as well. It was very rich compared to the ol' farm, but still, not my taste at all.  
  
I was brought a green (go figure) dress with a square neckline, many petticoats, and puffy sleeves. It was gorgeous, I had to admit, if only to m'self.  
  
I didn't like dresses an' such, I'd been too poor to afford them, and I felt out of place in this. I picked up a thing that resembled a bodice. 'What's this?'  
  
Madame snorted, 'it's a corset.'  
  
''Ow do you wear it?'  
  
'for one thing, I will show you today, and second, if you are truly worthy of this school, you will speak like a proper lady, instead of rattling off Cockney.'  
  
I rolled my eyes and cursed under my breath.  
  
'Use of such colourful language is not permissible in this house either, Ms. Silver.'  
  
Was this woman a witch, or was it just good hearing? I guess I didn't want to find out, so I changed into the petticoats and everything, and she returned in two mintues to help me with the corset.  
  
I immediately coughed, and gasped. I couldn't breathe.  
  
'How old are you, Ms. Silver?'  
  
'Going on fifteen.'  
  
'Good.' 'Why?'  
  
'So I know how to tighten your corset, of course!'  
  
ahh, so my waist had to equal my age. I literally flet my waist shirnk and me boobs pop up, a new phenom'non te me. That doesn't mean I liked it. I choked.  
  
'you'll have to learn to keep that gasping in,' Ms. Silver.'  
  
'I'll try my best, Madame Bissette,' I said through m'teeth.  
  
This school would be the death o' me yet. I s'pose when I learn te write, I'll write home, and as da and ma know how te read, I'll tell 'em that I hate it here.  
  
Five minutes in the school, and I was already learnin'. How to not breathe. Five minutes and me life was bein' threatened.  
  
I s'pose tha's a new record for me.  
  
Maybe I'll write that letter.  
  
Or take more drastic measures.  
  
I haven't gone down to dinner, and though I'm famished, I'm already plannin' an escape. I truly must be going mad here. I'll crack by the end o' term...unless I'm gone by then.  
  
I went ter dinner with the other girls. I was late and the Etiquette Mistress was most displeased .  
  
I took the empty seat she gestured to. Everyone was apparently waitin' for dinner te be served.  
  
A girl came in with a big bowl. She took a ladle and spooned soup into every girl's dish. Nobody said thank ye. This surprised me.  
  
I'd never been ter finishin' school, and I knew better than t' not say thank ye when I was given summat.  
  
When the maid came to my dish, and ladled the soup into my bowl, I uttered, 'Thank you.'  
  
She looked utterly socked t'hear thanks going to 'er.  
  
'Ms. Silver!' Mistress had apparently learned me name. 'We do not speak at the dinner table!'  
  
(An: I got this from A little Princess, but I thought it was cool.)  
  
'sorry ma'am.'  
  
She was taken aback by my 'colloquialisms' as she put it. I guess it's a good thing we can't talk at the table, because the only reaction the girls had was silent sniggers.  
  
I was near the head of the table, right next to Etiquette Mistress. I started swinging my legs as I looked around at the finery of the hall.  
  
My leg struck something, and Etiquette Mistress stiffened.  
  
DAMN IT! HOLY SHITE!  
  
I'd just kicked my teacher! I was not getting' a good start. I looked her way, and was the recipient of the most evil looking expression I'd seen. My eyes widened and I looked away, trying t'play innocent.  
  
After dinner, we were to go to our lessons. I had writing first. How lucky.  
  
We had to copy from the blackboard. I tried, I really did, but my letters were shaky. I had learned t'draw with coal when I was young, but I'd never 'eld a quill b'fore, and cursive wasn't as easy as it looked.  
  
Writing Mistress came over. 'You don't know how to write?'  
  
I heard sniggers.  
  
'Young ladies, need I inform the Etiquette Mistress just how many nosey parkers we have yet to educate?' The girls shut up and kept writin'.  
  
'I don't.' I mumbled in shame.  
  
Writing Mistress' blue eyes looked on me kindly. 'No matter, see me after class. I'll take it upon myself that you catch up with the class by the end of the week.'  
  
'I don't think that's possible ma'am.'  
  
'Why ever not, Ms. Silver?'  
  
'I don' know 'ow t'read either.'  
  
Her look changed to one of a little more concern. 'Then we'll have to work harder.'  
  
Somethin' about 'er made me like her, made me smile. I decided to try a hand at copying the paragraph on the board anyway. My quill broke under my hand.  
  
After the lesson was over, I reported to the teacher.  
  
'Ms. Silver, I want you to come see me everyone afternoon for an hour after all lessons, and I can teach you to read and write. You have catch up to the class, or there won't be a point in teaching you.'  
  
'yes, ma'am.'  
  
'All right. Now, I assume you have sewing next. You best be going.'  
  
I ran off to the garden, where the lesson took place. It was spring, and I'd be missing what the winter had promised would be the most beautiful spring my home had seen in years. I had to watch it from the isolation of a brick mansion full of rich people.  
  
I took a seat on a bench under an oak tree. Soon Sewing Mistress came over, handed me some supplies, told me ter sew a rose onto the cloth. Then, she left.  
  
Sewing, I could do, as my mum had taught me. I think my stitches were too big, and none too gracefully done, but I didn't get the thread tangled up in knots and the rose came out pretty well at the end of the hour. I'd spent enough time making my own clothes and mending those of my brothers' when they'd gone and ripped them and didn't want mum t'find out.  
  
After that class, I had speech in the library, where I was told to drop the Cockney dialect, because it made me sound like I'd been raised in a barn.  
  
That made me snort and say, 'Well, I DID grow up on a farm, ma'am.madam.'  
  
The teacher just gave me a pained looked. I was given a list of things to say out loud, and ter practice.  
  
For instance, it's to, not ter.  
  
Before, not b'fore Thank you, not thankye You're, your, not yer Somewhat, not summat  
  
I looked over the list again, after evening tea, when we were free to do as we pleased. I felt so fake to be speaking so proper.ly. What would it be to talk to my family when I returned home? I suppose I would speak to them as always. But then, I'd feel as if I were putting on airs, if I spoke to strangers.  
  
Anyhow, I retired to my room, where I met the other four girls who'd be living there.  
  
There was Hatty Smith, who was the snobbiest, and likely the richest of them. She had to best friends. The blonde, thin one was Jane Shaw, from Canterbury. She had a miffed look on her face. The other was from Liverpool, and named Fiona Harrison, the daughter of some duke or other. She had a pleasant look about her, which said nothing about her personality. She was extremely thin, yet dressed in a corset like the other girls.  
  
Here is this room was also the girl who had served the soup. I found out her name was Annette DuBois Valjean. She was from France, of a family as poor as mine. She and I struck up conversation.  
  
She told me she worked her to earn her keep. At first, the other girls had liked her, as she was French, and French was the language of refined people according to this school. And so they had assumed her rich. But when they saw her serving soup for the first time, they immediately began to mock her, and no longer found her accent nor heritage charming.  
  
I found her to be attractive to me as a friend. She was polite, and had a wonderful sense of humour.  
  
She taught me a few French phrases, in exchange I would help her speak as the English do. I almost said no, but she laughed and said she would love tolearn to rattle off Cockney like I did. So I agreed.  
  
We went out to the garden. I told her of my first acquaintance with Hatty and the other girls. They assumed I was rich, because Hatty assumed despite my dialect, I lived on a fox farm, where my father bred them to make fur coats. I didn't have the chance to respond and say no, that my father would never do such a thing to an animal, so I wasn't tormented terribly by the other girls.  
  
Annette and I finished our walk when it was dark.  
  
My first day had been an nightmare at this school, and I had many more to come. 


	3. Letters

Gradually, I adapted. After a week of hard work, I could copy letters, and sign my name, and began to learn cursive. I knew the sounds of all the letters, and started teaching myself to read. Everyday, I sat in m'room, during the free time in the evenings, teaching myself. 'Cat, c-a-tttt! C-a-t!' I would write it out, among the other words I tried to teach m'self. I would have Annette check them for me, because I was too embarrassed to ask anyone else. After a month, I could read well to myself, and stuttered only a little reading out loud.  
  
Writing mistress also said my grammar was improving. I was sort of proud of 'meself, but I realized they were all trying to make me docile. They were making a pet out of me and my progress.  
  
Dancing Mistress had taught me waltzes, and spirited gavottes. Singing Mistress had me sing hymns. Writing Mistress had given me literacy and vocabulary. Manners Mistress had me docile and polite. Sewing Mistress made me graceful and frivolous.  
  
I feared I was acting above my station.  
  
The months at boarding school wore on. I survived only after writing letters to my parents. As soon as I could write well, I wrote daily.  
  
Dear Mother, Father, William, and Isaac, I do miss you all and I miss home. Ive learnt to write, as you can see. My teechers still think I am a disgrase, however, but I frankly dont give a dam. (Excuse my French). Ive learnt to dance and sing and write and sew little red flowers onto patchwork quilts. Does that not sound lovly? Indeed. Can I come home? Love, Judith  
  
In brackets, are words scratched out Dear Mother, Father, Will, Isaac, I still miss you all. As well as the woods and the fields, and the dogs, and cats and every Thing about home. I wish I could return but I gess you want me too finish my finishing. I've begun to [reed] read books like all the other girls. Writing [misters] Mistress says I am improving, and I suppose I do give a damn or two after all. I've made a friend. Her name is...confound it, I can't spell French....Annette DuBois Valjean... she's the only friend and only sane one in this school. It is spring now. How are the rains? None too heavy, I hope. How are the crops doing this [seeson] season? Has William come home from school yet? How is Isaac? Say hello to Angus (our dog) for me. Love, Judy  
  
Dear Mother, Father, William, (if you're there) and Isaac, Still missing you, of course. They're making a puppet out of me here. Can you imagine, Judith Silver, made docile and tranquil? If only you were here to see it! I'm learning French if you can believe it. And at first I had thought learning what they call 'proper' English, would be a language of it's own. Bah! All this is not to say, of course, that I am entirely happy. I still begrudge the fact that you sent me here, and I do NOT intend to spend my summer at the school. I want to come home and work the fields. I never thought I would miss that, but I do. That and the animals, and the smell of the farm, and the colour of summer. Let me come home for a visit. Or I'll come seek you out myself- I am not kidding. You mark my words. I will see a country summer this year, if it's the last thing I do. If I don't get out of the corsets they're making me wear up here, I will choke, and I meant his literally. SEND ME HOME! Love and spite, Judy  
  
Indeed the school made a puppet out of me. One day, looking in the mirror putting up my hair as was expected of me, I noticed that my skin was pale, and of the shade of porcelain colour that my school mates had. I had not been in the sun very much, and I longed to be outdoors. My arms were pale, and only my face had the slightest hint of colour in it anymore.  
  
God, I missed the sun.  
  
It was now late April, and May was fast approaching. Having spent a term here at the school, I was ready to be sent for at the beginning of June.  
  
I couldn't wait. When Annette and I walked together, or sat in the Great Hall talking, all I could find myself talking about was home. Annette, of course, would not be going. She had found, or rather, the Headmistress had found for her, a position as assistant to an artist in Denmark.  
  
She would willingly go, as she could not return to France, having no method of transportation, and nobody would take her in during the summer.  
  
Annette went to denmark to earn some money for her family. I knew that in late May, a letter from Father would come for me, telling me I would be returning home.  
  
And everyday, I asked the headmistress if indeed a letter had come. And every single day of the month, I got the same response.  
  
'No, Judith.'  
  
'Not today, Judith.'  
  
'Still no, Judith.'  
  
'When it comes, you'll be the first to know.'  
  
'no.'  
  
'no.'  
  
'CONFOUND IT ALL NO ILL TELL YOU WHEN THE BLASTED THING ARRIVES!!!'  
  
The next time I asked, (apparently I'd not learnt my lesson) she gave me a look that said she was going to choke me in my sleep if I asked one more time.  
  
So I stopped asking, figuring that when the letter finally came, I'd be dead at the hands of my headmistress, and that would defeat the purpose of asking for the letter in the first place. 


End file.
